Electric Current Becomes Visible; So You Can See It Move - Voila!

Electrical Engineers on CE keep telling us how tough their initial years of learning are because electricity is an invisible entity and they have to imagine it flowing through stuff to understand things. Well, all that is now about to change as researchers from Kobe University's Graduate School of Science, led by Associate Professor Kenji Kimura, develop a magnetic imaging device that makes electric currents visible. This device shows where electric currents are flowing in a circuit. For instance, when you charge a battery, electricity accumulates inside, and using this device, you can see where it accumulates. Isn't that just great?



And well, that's not it. This device measures magnetism arising from inside the battery, and uses that data to solve Maxwell's equations in 3D. Solving these basic equations for electric and magnetic fields gives a clear picture of how electricity moves deep inside the battery. We all know that the performance of a battery deteriorates over time. This device will tell us the exact issue behind this and make it possible for us to make high performance batteries.

This device may find application in hospitals conducting MRI and CT scans because it can take internal high resolution images by measuring magnetism from the surface. Integral Geometry Instruments, a spin out from Kobe University will be manufacturing this device and it is expected to go on sale this summer. If you do hobby electrical projects at home though, you may not be happy to know that the expected price of the device will be 20-30 million yen ($250,000-375,000). Check out the video from DigInfo below -